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Millennials Devastated As American Dream Becomes Nightmare For Most
"It seems to me that if you went to college and took on student debt, there used to be greater assurance that you could pay it off with a good job," sums up one 'millennial', adding - sadly - "but now, for people living in this economy and in our age group, it's a rough deal." As WSJ reports, only about a third of adults in their early 20s works full-time - the lowest rate in 40 years - as the combination of structural changes and this recession "is devastating for millennial." Despite think-tanks demanding more of employers in terms of workplace rules and minimum wages, the reality is workers are expected to do more for less and be grateful - "this is a huge problem when think of where demand is going."
The young are earnings less and less relative to the average earnings in the US...
as the younger generation's participation in the labor force fell more than 3 times as fast in the "lost decade" as in the previous two decades...
Summing it all up - where the priority is:
The on-ramp to adulthood is delayed and harder to reach for young people today, a reality that is changing the country's society and economy, according to a new report.
More demanding job requirements, coupled with the pressures of the recession, have delayed the transition to adulthood for young people in the past decade and earned them the title of "the new lost generation," according to the report from the Georgetown University Center on Education and the Workforce, published Monday.
...
"It seems to me that if you went to college and took on student debt, there used to be greater assurance that you could pay it off with a good job," said the Colorado native, who majored in English before dropping out. "But now, for people living in this economy and in our age group, it's a rough deal."
...
Through analyzing about three decades of census data—from 1980 to 2012—the study found that on average, young workers are now 30 years old when they first earn a median-wage income of about $42,000, a marker of financial independence, up from 26 years old in 1980.
About a third of adults in their early 20s work full time, a proportion that rises to about half of adults in their late 20s. The labor-force participation rate for young people last year declined to its lowest point in about 40 years, according to the report.
...
In recent decades, the U.S. has seen a gradual outward shift in people's professional lives: Americans today tend to start work later and continue working longer than in past generations. A decade ago, a boy in his late teens was twice as likely as a man his grandfather's age to hold a job; today, the teen is actually less likely to be working.
...
"The combination of structural change plus this particular recession has been devastating for millennials," ... "It has really knocked them back, and some of these losses are permanent."
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"The millennial generation was the generation to confront this structural change first," said Mr. Carnevale. "It has sorted them out in ways that have made them more unequal than any generation before. For those who didn't get the traction [for a job], it's not clear that they will get the traction."
And the full report is below:
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Unless you are a millenial working for Goldman Sachs, then life is good
Bought and paid for by satan himself....oh what a lucky man he was.
In part, another unintended consequence of ZIRP. My boss is in his 70s and put off retirement indefinitely because zero rates means zero income to him.
And now the obligatory, Fuck You Bernanke!
ZH should just rename the blog FUBernanke
When his Depends leak on your shoe during a meeting, it will finally become clear what trickle down economics was really all about.
Too dripping true
Garbage - Only Happy When It Rains (official music video) with lyrics
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=esEdC0c3YI4 (3:57)
Ugh. What an appropriate moniker.
Automotive repar shops are extremely busy. People are unable to afford reliable transportation and are keeping their vehicles longer. Aojority of older vehicles coming in for service are the inexpensive products that are manufactured by Christ-ler. These are being stacked up at the shop like cord wood. Others that are basically shot to hell are piling up too. Bad times ahead.
I'm pushing 20 years on my old japanese car. Leasing a new car basic midsize/family sedan would easily cost $400 a month, amortizing the up front payments and taxes. I figure even if I spend $1,200 a year on repairs, I'm still $300 a month ahead, and I'm not even spending that much. Buying parts off amazon, ebay and other online vendors and repairing myself or bringing to my mechanic to install costs 25% of what the dealer would charge.
Seems things have gone in a big circle: In the 1960's it was cheaper to replace even major components (engines, transmissions) than "buy new" especially since the "New Car" warranties were pretty crap. Then (late 80's onward) the "per unit" cost seemed less (what with sweetener deals via easier finance) and "everyone" has to have a New Car (especially just after leaving University!).
Now - full circle - it's become cheaper to repair than replace, especially if you use rebuilt / reconditioned components from a reputable dealer. At least you will know that the part has been looked at by a skilled individual, rather than "robotically assembled", by a "real" machine, or by a "Human masquerading as a machine".
Oh you guys need to lease a Tesla. Just plug it in and it goes for 240 miles on $4 of electricity. Nothing ever breaks. No oil to change either.
Excellent! I need to get the par on my car repared soon. I fear the time of Aojority is behind us now, and aojority will be a memory or mere rumor for the kids of tom morrow.
This is so when WWIII and the new draft come along they'll be happy for three meals a day, some pay, and getting away from Mom and Dad and the town they grew up in.
That last chart showing corporate profits versus percentage of U.S. population with a job pretty much tells the story.
A lot of millenials in my neck of the woods are working two part-time jobs just to stay afloat.
See the same 20 something guys at the Target then the liquor store, or working the produce at the grocery store then the paint department at Home Depot. I thought they had changed jobs - then when I kept seeing the same guys in two places I thought I might be losing my mind - then I started asking questions. They have to work two places and juggle schedules because NO ONE will give them full time.
Think they are going to be buying into the "healthcare" exchanges?
I wouldn't if I were them.
Not exactly a "new" phenomenon though. In the very early 1970's in the UK I did the "evening shelf-filling shift" at Tescos, supplemented with a regular weekend (Sat and Sunday, all-day) job as a Service Station Attendant.
You may be certain I wasn't the only one doing this sort of thing, and it wasn't "just for beer money". The necessary textbooks were just as dear in "The Good Old Days" too!!
Tell me about it. I was working for the state, as a non-union programmer, and six years of no COLAs meant I couldn't quit the part-time grocery store job I'd worked through college without losing my modest home. At first, when it was a summer job, I was surprised that I never saw anybody from school around town but after awhile I was actually glad that it was so. 30 years old and stocking shelves because I couldn't make ends meet on my "real" job. I don't remember why exactly but one day I just broke down over the phone with my mother. I'm not the toughest or bravest person by any measure but somebody close has to die to trigger that response. And the worst part is, it could've been worse, it could've been two or three part-time jobs that didn't pay enough. We've let the insanity of billionaire sociopaths do incalculable damage to this country and I fear there's still much more to come.
I feel for these kids. If the election was tomorrow I wonder how many would vote again for this Marxist, Commie, Faggot who is cuntinuing to fuck it all up? Yeah I know they are indoctrinated but still. I wonder how many look at Obamie care today and realized not only can't they afford if if they want to eat but the deductible is $5 grand per year.
Yeah, Red Blue Red Blue whatever this Prezzy is a loser and making things worse.
And they so wanted to believe in Obama, you could just see the glossy sparkle over their eyes when they talked about him.
You'd see the same thing in the kids excited about Bush or Romney; "He's going to change everything and make it right."
Maybe they'll start to realize there is no political solution - or they'll harden to one side or the other.
A number of them I know don't give a fuck anymore and are living for today.
Can't say I blame them.
Seems the Millenials justifiably see themselves as really no different to previous generational groupings - http://www.huffingtonpost.com/post-grad-problems/millennials-definition_b_3956955.html , but indeed there is a lot of political apathy around in the comfortable Western economies - and many (of all generational groupings) feel that there is no point in voting anymore - "same end result, just a different Brand Label".
Contrast this with the "recently enfranchised" e.g. Egypt, and the differences in attitude are stark
Much has been made about libertarians sitting out the last election, but so did young voters. If it had only been libertarians staying home, Obama would have completely crushed Romney.
There's a definite opening for a third party, but we're probably past the point of being able to save this country politically.
For the times they are a changin'. . .
Marx would be deeply offended by any reference to Obama. .
Many if not most still love the Muslim and the Democrat Party. They voted for this. The other team is not much better but the Dems and O are far worse. They won't even negotiate. F em.
ZH still has some posters that still love the muslim, Reid and Pelosi.
Yeah, well, F everybody that loved the draft-dodging job-destroying insurance-mandating war-mongering entitled millionaire sociopath that the stupid party ran against him.
Creepy Uncle Chalky Obamao wants to medically probe you. Now that's a fright night story.
Some people have gotten together and done a lot of minuses on this thread.
It is more likely a reflection of the ZH reader/participant demographic. One would assume that the majority of millennials who participate on ZH were not enthusiastic supporters of the standard-bearer of the current regime in residence at the White House.
I would like to see data on that. I would guess that millennials who participate on ZH are looking to anyone that is offering any hope.
And frankly having some Asshat blab about pulling oneself up by ones bootstraps would probably not resonate too well with them...
I will admit to having voted for Da Won Messiah in 2008 (and I have on here before) but I was young, it was my third election and just wanted to come home from Iraq at the time. I believed that he's pull us out.
Now I know better. My awakening did not occur in one specific instance, but around 2009 (and certainly by early 2010) I had fully woken up to reality.
Some of you may know me from other sites, you can read my posts.
Thank you for your service.
All this talk of getting older is getting me down my friends. . . .
I have, no had, no fuckit, i dream!
We borrowed from the future for the past 30 years, and now Mr. Future is here to collect, one way or the other.
Millennials are rightly fucked by the Boomers who "carved out" their safety nets at the expense of others. The Gen Xers and Y all were too caught up in the sycophantic conspicuous consumption of iShit, and crap that is irrelevant, but they determined it "essential, at the expense of the next generation, yours millenials. Nobody thought of "the future". We once thought on the lines of the "greater good" to be something like an "Apollo" program, but no, it is now, "what can I gets" attitude. Feral to say the least.
We had the capability and vision of the Apollo program, but sidetracked our values a little at a time til LIBERTY was no longer a right, but a simple virtue to be "aspired to", not the reason to live.
You have to now hear and respond to the call of history, to stand, when no one stood for you. You do it, because it is the right thing to do. First step, fight the Democratic and Republican parties. They exist only to promote their brand, and NOT liberty. Some of your idiot generation did shoot yourselves in the foot by supporting this crappy President and Democratic Party. YOU have to undo that, for me to untie with YOU in the cause of Liberty!
The Revolution awaits. FOR LIBERTY!
The Republicans need to learn to hate Reagan-Bush more than they hate Clinton-Obama.
The Democrats need to learn to hate Clinton-Obama more than they hate Reagan-Bush.
Free your mind and your ass will follow -- Funkadelic
Yeah, man, more hate that's bound to work....
Who the F tried to whack Reagan? Possibly the Connecticut Kennedy klan in TX. They hated him. I later think the Alzheimer was a El See Eye A dah prion.
That klan with the Clintons and O's buddies in Chicago have been running much of the durg running in the USA.
When the top .01% take so much, things have to change for the 99.9 %. We get less.
If I recall correctly, student debt exploded in the last 10 years (FRED graph). Therefore the assumption of taking on student debt and getting a job is not based upon historical evidence. Hate to say it: too bad, so sad for taking the debt.
Regardless of the apparent disagreement in this thread on the basis of every comment seeming to have multiple up and down votes, if you want to see truly aggravating comments, read the idiotic bullshit in the comment section of that linked WSJ article up above.
As opposed to older generations, the barriers to entry to any sort of stable career are impossibly high now. Maybe it made sense back in the day to drive a cab or work at a coffee shop or take any other sort of menial position, say in the mail room, of a giant company because there was at least some inkling of a chance to be promoted upward. Right now, you take a shit job and you're fucked for life, you become tainted goods to many subsequent employers and it gets you fucking nowhere anyway in terms of trying to buy a car, a house, or whatever else you're aiming for, so at most you get a bit of pocket change and you probably will want to keep it off your resume. No career benefit, and you aren't making shit anyway, better to get on foodstamps and government handouts.
If you aren't from a rich family, generally speaking your only chance is to climb the greasy pole with hundreds of thousands of other students to try to get into a top school, so that you might have a chance to network with people so far above your social class that your only chance to network with them otherwise would be while selling them their morning latte, if you're lucky. Even with the absolutely impossible tuition cost. You're going to be poor whether you're in that student debt and are in the large proportion of students who won't be able to afford paying it off or whether you're working at Starbucks, so you may as well roll the dice and if it doesn't work, you're poor anyway.
And as evidence just look through resume's of any financial or law firm, or any major company for that matter. You'll see that everyone who got in out of schools they graduated in the early 90s or before went to total shit schools and probably did fuck all while in school, whereas any new hire graduated top of their class at Harvard or has the same last name as one of the C-level executives. I can't believe how hard it is for boomers and older generations to open their eyes and see the obvious, you could reinvent the wheel at this point as a millenial and still never get a decent, stable job. Older generations who came into being after WW2 were the most fortunate generation in history, and they blew it all on their own greed and arrogance.
Most accurate post I've seen on this topic so far.
I also discussed with my father that he had his own apartment for $100/mo. (with his own bathroom, but a sharred kitchen) whereas I can't find anything outside the ghetto for under $1000.
Now that I'm not married I could MAYBE find a place with room mates for around $600, but it would still be a significant portion of my pay. Before packing up my old place I was paying $1,261/mo., the woman contributed nothing toward that but did buy food....sometimes and that alone was close to 60% of what I was making working part time and going to school.
My parent's generation was only paying 15-20% of their income a month on housing. The default post-2000s rule is that people/families pay 30 or 33% of their income a month on house. That is what is said to be the standard, but reality is probably closer to 45-50% on average for a middle class family.
Of course I'm comparing apples to oranges to bananas because there are hundreds of different living situations, ages, family structures, etc. But the fact of the matter is is that young people these days are paying RIDICULOUS amounts of money on housing, and here's the key: NOT BY CHOICE.
The "not by choice" part is key to why so many are either staying with or even moving back in with parents. Often there is no other reasonable and/or possible choice.
Yes, its almost always someone else's fault. This was the evil boomer's plan all along. That and young idiots voting for a lying socialist president.
I'm not sure I would call it a plan. The boomers have well proven that they're incapable of any sort of long term planning, preferring to blow any cash they could get their hands on and creating nothing productive in their selfish wake
So the question is, how is that any different than what young people are doing today? A distinction without a difference?
How are young people supposed to take up the reins when the whole game is rigged against them? The majority of millenials have less than a fraction of the prospect of ever owning property, saving up for retirement, investing in or starting a business than past generations. You can't be entrepreneurial or innovate as easily when you have no cash to put up and no hope of making enough cash to put up because boomer can-kicking keeps inflating asset bubbles and gutted our entire manufacturing base. Whereas boomers had a selfless, "great generation" preceding them who basically created the most fertile environment for business and economic development in the history of mankind.
Perhaps millenials would have done the same thing, handed a silver platter by the post-WW2 generation. But the boomers were the generation to follow, and boomers need to realize their notions of picking up and carving yourself a piece of the pie are completely inapplicable to this market, and I think most boomers would be wallowing in uselessness if they had to deal with this same situation. Millenials are trying, and the fact that they're less successful than boomers has little to do with them being overall less driven and more to do with boomers being the luckiest fuckers alive.
I can foresee a cycle of doom going forward from here.
My optimistic side realizes that this suffering is only making SOME of us stronger.
I liken your post to the idea of crop rotation. The Greatest Gerneration not only utilized their fields responsibly and harvested a good crop, but they kept it well fertilized, and left it fallow every once in awhile so as to not over-extend their abundance and allow it to replenish itself naturally.
Boomers simply sowed, harvested, sowed, harvested, sowed, harvested...and not only never added any fertilizer, but also never slowed down to allow the fields to replenish.
So Millenials have no been handed overtaxed fields with absolutely zero nutrients in them, and not only that but boomers have hoarded all the seeds and (just like Monsanto) refuse to release any without significant cost and debt-accumulation.
And you expect us to plant what? Oh yeah, and even if we could grow anything in this economic environment aging boomers, tax n spend liberals, and the military-industrial complex will simply move to steal our harvest.
Yes. Because 22-30 year olds clearly chose to live in an environment where rents have shot to astronomical levels in a short period of time.
Remind me again who bought McMansions they couldn't afford, then defaulted on their obligations and went into the rental markets BY THE MILLIONS (rapidly increasing demand, rapidly decreasing supply) thinking that if they were paying $4K/mo. on a mortgage that paying $1,500/mo. in rent is somehow a good deal?
I guess it's a matter of perspective. Those deadbeats who couldn't pay their debts and only wanted to escape (by running away and hiding!!!) from the burdens in which they placed themselves, certainly thought that to be the case.
Oh, and remind me again how abundant that supply of foreclosures is. If banks had actually foreclosed in the way that a free market should have (of course this was prevented by boomers who didn't want to "lose equity") I would've bought some boomer's house in cash back in early '10 with money that I had just spent my then-entire adult life SAVING.
Sounds like a sweet deal when you can just avoid responsibility like that. Sounds like the banks theselves, reaping the rewards when it's good and not having to face any sort of punishment when things go bad!!!
A lot of generalizations going on here. I'm sixty, worked my hole life (still am) and didn't do any of the shit you seem to believe are "boomer typical". My point is we are all human with the same exact weaknesses and this generational finger pointing accomplishes nothing but diverting responsibility from one's self.
Indeed. I assume however that Zerohedge readers (and especially posters) are atypical of the average population and have generally made better choices in life than most. I'm 27 and I assume most on here realize that I've done pretty damn well for myself especially given the environment that I live in, but regardless of that I've done pretty well anyway.
I agree with many (if not most) that as a whole millenials are pretty fucked up. However, many of the more able and intelligent are simply responding to market conditions and oftentimes there really and truly are few good options for many of us.
As a 20 year old my only goal in life was to live honestly as a middle class family man. Seven years later that has been shot to shit, in large part due to economic conditions, and although I personally have fared better than 95% of my peers it is still rough as fuck out there.
Oftentimes when I weigh my options that are realiztically on the table I have the choices of: Mediocre. Not so Great. Bad. Worse. Worser. Obama Sized. and "No Human Should ever have to be in a position to choose this."
If I catch a break and one of my options on the table is actually a good or great long-term option I'll of course take that.
While I wish to blame no one, look at the world that has been created around me. You'll have to admit that it is shit, and while I was out doing my best in my early adult life it would seem that boomers have covered every road, fork in the road, and ditch off to the side of the road, with fields of shit as far as the eye can see.
It would seem that my best option is to decide where the layer of shit happens to be thinnest and trudge on through it. That, I think, your generation has to honestly admit to.
What a load of crap. Wish I could take you back to the days of 12% unemployment, the price of gas doubling then doubling again, food everything else going up in proportion, bone crushing interest rates of 16% on mortgages, even higher on car loans.
It wasn't all polyester leisure suits and Glen Campbell eight tracks, believe me.
No one in the USA needs the labor of those millenials anyway. They can get all they need made in China and sold at WalMart.
Didn't President Purple Lips promise to go over the budget line by line and eliminate uneccesary spending? Instead, he concentrated on getting his pole smoked by Reggie Love.
every campaign speech was a carefully scripted bullshit fucking lie...
Taken as a whole, the Millenials are pretty much a disapponting generation.
Perhaps you're generalizing a bit. From my own perspective (and I am the very tail end of Gen X., which is wholly different from Gen Y which grew up with cell phones in their hands from very young ages and hardly ever played outside the way my peirs and I did) people currently under 25 are either completely useful or completely useless. I see very little middle ground.
The Debt is the trap that prevents them from escaping from the Wall Street/Walmart economy. This cannot continue indefinitely.
Either you employ them in the Potemkin Village or you release them and let them go and build a sustainable life free of the cloud of insolvency.
Right now the debt is uncollectible and is being carried at a vastly inflated value. Sound familiar?
And the stupid fucking idiotic non-essential government employee types, are busy pushing these young people who are at the prime of their productivity, off the books.
How do they think they are going to finance their "Greek payrolls" going forward?
What a bunch of fucking USDA morons.
I have two kids.
Both are very intelligent and talented (I'd like to claim they got it from me!)
Both were in 'gifted' programs at school and neither are going down the road of debt based education.
Both are doing things that enrich their lives.
I've made my way through life based on my abilities - Chemistry and Astronomy at uni - became a sign painter!
I've always done something I enjoy to make a living.
I don't have a car, a cell phone, a TV or any debt.
Life's simple and mostly ejoyable.
Fuck the corporate world.
Live life on your own terms.
The sign painting business does very well in HK.
Go East young man.
All of my brothers and sisters are going through the process of achieving dual citizenship for their kids.
As a 27 year old just let me say this:
I'm guessing your parents are boomers.
I'm guessing you have no respect for them.
Could be making a wrong guess, but then WTF does a 27 year old know?
He might know he is screwed getting a job and the implications of that is what this post was all about.
My parents will have their own retirement covered. One is a saver and likely an undercover millionaire next door who lives in a modest house and drives a modest vehicle; and the other plans to die by smoking within the next decade (unconfirmed, but judging by current trends this appears to be the case).
No, no I don't think you understand, we DID pay into retirement accounts.
They were taken out of our salary automatically every week without fail.
We were fucked as much as you. We were lied to for40 years before being fucked.
At least they told you straight up they were gonna fuck you.
We were "told" the money would be "invested on our behalf". We also read in certain Newspapers (in the days when Investigative Journalism was still "Investigative") that the money coming in was immediately spent and that in the era when the relative proportions of "payers" far, far outnumbered the "receivers". The figures didn't add up then, and many correctly regarded the "forced deductions" as another, essentially unavoidable, form of taxation.
So much for all those "headline" low-tax economies . . . . .
They paid your way didn't they?
Don't turn your back on me Benny, don't turn your back on me Benny. . . gotta a black magic Benny and he's tryin' make a Debtor outta me. . .
Learn a trade. If you have the talent and develop a skill, employers will pay you well. Get your foot in a door where you can work with a master of that trade. Master a trade or a craft and you will always have work.
Do that, manage your credit, live a good but frugal life, and you won't have to worry about paying your bills and feeding your family. This is 35 years of experience talking. 20 of those years for the same employer.
Bullshit. What good is a trade if people cannot afford to use your services?
You are missing something here.
If you have a skill and a trade you can pretty much always survive.
When TSHTF a skill will buy you more life than any bullshit paper 'qualification'
Tell that to the tradesmen in
Greece, Spain, Portugal and Italy.
Hedgetard, toilets still block up and sinks still clog in Greece, Spain etc......
As my dad always said, "in the end, people will vote with their feet."
I repaired a diesel compressor today and earned $200. There's plenty of businesses that will hire me. I'm good at what I do, and they know it.
And your customer got a good deal and you provided them with a lot of value. Good for you. Learn to fix stuff, grow food (it is not easy) and be able to provide a valuable service or skill.
I have noticed that lawyers and law firms are dropping like flies in many areas. CPA's are having a rough time too.
I am not sure I have the answer, but I did meet guy who worked on Custom log homes. He would move into the next Aspen (in this case Bend Oregon) and set up shop doing entryways of custom log homes.
He got in before the multi million dollar homes came in, but even then I was amazed that he was living in a better place than I could even think of affording. I remember at the time thinking that they cannot really outsource custom homes, and that there will always be the very rich...
Now since that time, my brother lost his home so I have not been back to see if he has faired well, but maybe....
To hell with that. Find a skill others value and use it to work for yourself. Working for others (rather than with them) is rarely a path to security or fulfillment. The upside of having little to lose, is almost any path out will work.
Exactly...even Faber is in favor of trades vs useless degrees:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F-hTffVyB9U
One of America’s greatest generations, World War II vets, stood up in defiance of the government's absurdity today.
They stormed through the metal barricades and signs announcing closure of the World War II Memorial, some in wheelchairs and some using canes, pushing aside Harry Reid's closure signs to pay homage to their fallen comrades from more than half a century ago. .
A shout went up as the barricades came down. Police stood aside.
These veterans-on-a-mission had traveled all the way from Mississippi in a chartered $80,000 airplane to honor their dead.
“I’m not going to enforce the ‘no stopping or standing’ sign for a group of 90 World War II veterans,” said a U.S. Park Police officer, who declined to give his name. “I’m a veteran myself.”
If the millennial generation wants traction, they should follow the example set by their forebears. This is their country. They should act before it’s too late and put the university system back under control of the American people who established and paid for it and let the free market once again determine rates and costs and jobs, not self-serving academics and bureaucrats and multinational corporations.
It was the millenials who helped put a man into the Oval Office the rulers could control - a man "not proud" of his country. Among 18- to 29-year-olds, Obama was able to win Hispanics, blacks and women by double-digit margins in his reelection. The only demographic group of 18- to 29-year-olds he lost was whites, by 51 percent, according to Pew.
All told, in 2008,young voters preferred Obama by 68 percent to 30 percent.
My dad served on HMS Warspite and after being invalided out (he got polio while on leave in Malta) worked on the breaking of the Enigma code - Winston Churchill's ULTRA Secret.
When the UK government were discussing new identity cards, his comment was "I'll never have one of those, I've still got my WW2 ID, from a time when we really needed it. I thought we fought Hitler so we wouldn't need this."
He was a good man.
I miss him.
"...the Enigma code"
Poles did it nearly 7 years before the outbreak of the war.
Well, I guess that would have saved him a lot time then. To bad nobody told him huh?
True, I believe they didn't even let the British know until early August of '39.
Thank you for your story.
JR, obviously some young progressive trolls here tonight based on your two down votes. But that is one of the greatest posts I've seen here. Thanks...
My home state and my Congress critter (Steven P) that stood up for what was right......also, along the same lines....let that motorcycle 'gang' try what they did in NY down in MS.....there would be alot of 'pulp' laying around and lots of gunshot wounds for the new Obamacare to treat....just saying that shit works out when you can stand up for you rights.
JR
Here is one of them expressing his opinion.
http://westernrifleshooters.wordpress.com/2013/10/01/americans/
Yeah, they should have voted for the asset stripper who would have them living with killer austeriy and would have started WWIII.
Even Mr. Empty Promises and Turn His Back On His Base is better than that.
Austerity is such an interesting word right now.
It was supposed to mean living within your means. But as it was put into practice in a bunch of European countries it never (except for a single year for Spain) was a drop in year to year spending. It was more of a transfer of this spending from dependant classes of welfare recipients and public workers to financial industry for "stimualating" crony capitalistic practices where the well connected get the booty.
Other names for 'austerity regime' are 'structural adjustment' and 'disaster capitalism'. Oh, and don't forget 'reform'.
Some might call it racketeering, looting, pillaging, or asset stripping as well. All legal as long as you give the government its cut.
H-1B's have devastated the under-35 crowd in the tech sector. Even top engineering grads can't find jobs these days, and entire firms in the Silicon Valley are racially segregated with H-1B's being used to enforce this racial segregation (cough, Marvell, cough, Microsoft, cough!).
We have a bunch of them in my shop. Java, etc No natives being hired.
Yes. They turn the IT dept into their ghetto. In some cases, the companies fail because most are shitty. Motorola loaded up with Indians and did almost all H1Bs. Americans were pushed out.
workers are expected to do more for less and be grateful
Why work. They have robots to do that shit now. You won't catch me working.
The government has to get the money from the rich people (the owners of the robots) to pay me not to become discontent. They have to pay me not to rise up in revolution against them. And they will. And they are. That's the real world.
If this was the case - they would kill all the udesirables.
Even large, high-tech, automated corpses still need legions of people and a lot of labor. It's just that they have ways to skew payoffs. Like Pharaoh could siphon extreme proportion of wealth with brute force, now it's "1%" that siphons it with blocking competition, arcane unjust law, corporations shileding from responsbility etc etc. But they need the people still. And when all of the people just show them the finger, they'll starve like the rest. There's going to be no magical elysium with robot-made food and robot-made things, just a collapse and later restructuring.
"James Roy, 26, has spent the past six years paying off $14,000 in student loans for two years of college by skating from job to job. Now working as a supervisor for a coffee shop in the Chicago suburb of St. Charles, Ill., Mr. Roy describes his outlook as "kind of grim." "It seems to me that if you went to college and took on student debt, there used to be greater assurance that you could pay it off with a good job,' said the Colorado native, who majored in English before dropping out."
Okay, there's three problems here. One, this Colorado native assumed that he could get a good job. Did James Roy do research into his field and the employment opportunities offered therein and weigh them against the cost of education before taking on his student debt? No? Well, that's your fault, James Roy. Two, James Roy majored in English. How in the holy fuck is a degree in English going to be useful, Mr. Roy? Exactly what kind of marketable skills does that major yield in today's workplace? That's your fault too, James Roy. Three, he dropped out. He didn't even finish the degree. So he pissed away $14k on a partial education for nothing, and what does his dropout status say on an employment application? That's your fault as well, Jamie boy. So now you're working in a coffee shop, and it's somehow society's fault? Fuck you and the entitlement horse you rode in on, boy. You proved that you have no work ethic by not researching the employment prospects of your major thoroughly before saddling yourself with non-dischargeable debt and by failing to complete your degree. You work in a coffee shop because that's the only job your work ethic qualifies you for.
The media picks and chooses these types on purpose. 1.) it serves to placate those who would simpathize with Mr. Roy and further entrench their beliefs that he should be "given" a better job or have his loans written off or a house or whatever they feel he "deserves," and 2.) it serves to rile up people who are already "in the know" and can see that it is an obvious ploy and that his own poor choices led to his current situation.
Well I would hope the younger generation would unplug TV and Hollywood because they control what most of the public thinks and is used by the politicians/elites to control the masses.
The baby boomers and old folks are the TV generation and they drool and watch that shit and believe everything Tv tells them. Walter Cronkite was like a Stalinist big brother. These old folks still buy into this shit because TV told them they were special as baby boomers.
Oh - and if you were not told a million times - they went to ***king Woodstock which had shitty bands anyway, except The Who.
Most of their heroes like David Crosby, Jim Morrison, Zappa and a lot more were the children of elites MIC/intelligence who's job was to turn war protestor into peace and love hippies who smoked dope. LBJ's illegal war was too big of a money maker for MIC. It is all over the web. Younger movie stars and rock music people in the USA were very connected to MIC, oldest families in America and intelligence agencies. Some of the band managers were ex-intel.
I picked a high demand field with a starting pay in the $60k range, a range that had stayed steady for nearly twenty years. I got a $120k education, took out $25k in loans and had the rest paid for with academic scholarships and grants.
Then 2000 happened. I worked for Lucent for two months, they cratered. Went to Whirlpool, they liquidated the department one month in. Desperate, I took a job with a housewares company that designed for Target, Walmart, etc. I designed 100 products and the CEO fired me. I found out later that designers lasted about six months on average at his company. The guy siphons ideas and then lets the designers go so he doesn't have to pay almost anything for years worth of products.
With so many people out of jobs and new graduates flooding the market with no job prospects for the next few years, starting salaries plummeted. 14 years later you're lucky to land $30k starting to pay back the $250k you took out for the degree.
You repubs love imposing ex post facto guilt. Seems to be your stock in trade, whether it's some naive 18 yr old who picks the wrong major or some woman on welfare who gets beat up by her "boyfriend" if she refuses sex. My guess is that you couldn't hold a candle to the people you crticize if you suddenly found yourself in the same boat.
Some of us have been in that boat. Some of us worked 7 day weeks for 10 to 12 hours a day, created jobs for people and treated them humanely. We made sure they got paid before we did. We made sure they had health insurance and we worked extra hours on nights and weekends to make sure the business survived because these people were often like family to us.
We made sure we were frugal and paid cash and kept debt to a minimum.
Many of us worked like dogs for shitheads to turn it all over to this kenyan muslim who has sealed all his records and has the media protecting him at every turn. Shitty McCain and Romney were no choice because it was rigged by the elites and NWO - BUT - we all know that we and the media would be all over them if they screwed up in a big way. Obama gets a free pass on everything.
Well if you did it then f**k you because reality is about to set in finally and we are all screwed.
Reagan was far from perfect but he essentially said that a lazy and clueless American public could easily F the country in one generation and lose it all. He was right.
I have to say I am hoping somebody/ a few in that generation rise up and say fuck this shit man. We aint paying the debt and retirement of that generation that screwed us but good.
I'm an optimist, I can still hope can't I? Maybe that's what that whole occupy movement was except all they spewed was Marxist clap trap. Rally on Liberty, Freedom, the Constitution and how you can take your $18 trillion in debt and $100 Plus Trillion in Unfunded and ram it up your ass and they could maybe get something going.
Amen to repudiating the debt and the (unchosen) intergenerational obligations. The employment situation (or lack thereof) will ensure such an outcome. It will first become evident w/Obamacare. When millions of millennials fail to sign up (and they wont, because they cant afford that AND pay off student loans), the system will actuarily fail. It mathematically REQUIRES the healthy youth to enroll and they aren't going to if only b/c they cant.
The new American dream is being a horse faced psycho who pranced around in a YouTube video and now has TV deals, commercials, and branded merchandise.
Or making a meth lab in a storage locker, trying to copy what you saw on Breaking Bad.
Work has nothing to do with success anymore. The richest people I know don't do one minute of anything I'd consider work on any given day.
1968 We went to college in Eau Claire Wisconsin. Both of us could work the summer before, as nurses aides or in grocery store and earn enough to pay for tuition. We were able to pay for our own kids education, by picking up extra night shifts etc, so they graduated debt free, including one engineering Phd. We observed that as the housing bubble exploded, so did tuition, and no one seemed to care. Families were able to refinance their homes to pay for their kids college, expecting that home values would continue to skyrocket. Unfortunately, for many, it didn't work out so well, and home prices crashed. People lost their homes, couldn't refinance and shifted their tuition obligations to student loans. Funny thing, college tuitions remained in the stratosphere, and all the lush professors and administrators salaries and benefits continued to climb. The millenniums are now carrying all the rocks in their backpacks, with little way out. This can't end well at all.
I really like the last graph showing corp profits and work participation rates. It reminds me of Kyle Bass explaining to congress how he was able to anticipate the housing bust. He explained divergences and how they tend to reconverge. Looking at this graph we see a major divergence that WILL correct. The only way that corporate profits can be increasing while workers and their incomes are declining is through debt or inflation. Some believe that automation will displace workers, but how? How can anyone make anything and sell it to people without money? Borrowing and printing are the only way and they cannot last. The only true wealth comes from production and if everyone is sitting idle, only eating and not producing, how can it work? Not to mention the old addage, idle hands are the devils workshop.
I like to see this. Sweet schadenfreude to my eyes. 9 out of 10 of them voted for these communists so they deserve every ounce of hardship coming their way. At least they are learning this valuable life lesson at an early age and might still be able to recover by voting for fiscal conservative constitutionalists next time.....like that will ever happen.
Provided they even get one to vote for.
Witness how the RNC treated Ron Paul and his supporters. Supression and fraud.
voting for fiscal conservative constitutionalists next time - still a turd sandwich. (Obamunism is a double turd sandwich with no bread.)
voting doesn't matter
I didn't vote
I am a milennial
I make $50k a year and live with some dude from Craigslist for $500/month all bills paid
gonna buy gold with my teacher's retirement fund I am cashing out (less than $10k but I don't believe it will be there for long...(
'How is it, that since the inception of the `Federal Reserve Banking SYSTEM`, America has become the `Plantation owner of the 90%?'
Indeed,... from Wilson, FDR, Johnson, Slick Willy to the dual BushWacker's and now the impregnable Obama, we are all, part and parcel owned by the establishment... trademark (TM) USSA?
No moar manufacturing base-- no moar forty-hour weeks-- no moar time and a half for overtime-- no moar fringe-benefits (esp. the one's you can't eat?)-- no moar unions except for `Uncle Sams' Enforcer's?'-- no moar constitution with a permanent 'Holy-Writ-on-Rights?-- no moar 'Social Security IOU's' until the Immigration Bill passes to pay for are next generation of mercinaries for the Arab's and Jew's pleasure du`jour, fulfilling our senior's senses, and a long ago promise of a 'chicken-in-every-pot', as Mr. Hoover exits the room with an unapologetic aprohism for failure?-- no moar 'Energy Program', since de`Cheney seals it's fate with a compromised broken'd third branch from his money tree Universalist Agenda, sealed and delivered by Tricky Dick's known-unknowns Rumsfeldom?-- no moar peace for peace's sake,... no moar... no moar???
This litany of 'No-Moars' is just a taste of a plantation's (USSA) ownership now having complete ownership of it's 90% property!
Amazon hires Seventy-Thousand temporary workers for the 'CHRIST' holy`days-- WalMart hires a Hundred-Thousand temp's-- Target and others follow suit with the Plantation (USSA) Owner picking up the welfare ben`ee's with extra foodstanps to buy and purchase at the company store's!?! Yeah... it don't get any better than this, working three-months a year on 'Someone's Dime?', until the Plantation's Company Store goes broke and the slave's turn their complaceny into comradery and burn the fucking money-tree and poppy fields down?
No Jobs, No food, No Hope,... is a volitile recipe for a self-induced comatose foreign policy that the USSA's wrought upon itself when it gave the power of the purse to a foreign, and private entity,... and a slave-master USSA Plantation Owner the (no-exit-clause) right to hold it's ethereal papier`mache!
Rant Over
JMO Thankyou Tyler
Ps. When is enough,... {[?]}
Ps2. One only hopes that the 1% doesn't destroy the next true democracy after this phoenix crashes...
Rework Right-to-Work and Taft-Hartley to include Temporary/Staffing Agency/Contract labor as covered under the "not required to join as a condition of accepting or continuing work" provisions. Once consent is required to take on a less secure form of work than full-time (and that it has to outcompete full-time on the same requirements), a lot of the permatemping abuse dies a horrible, nasty, and gruesome death.
It might not be good for those that rely on permatemping in their business, but it would add the freedom to choose for all parties.
All the arguments and frustrations expressed in these periodic meat-tossing, cross-generational smackdowns are symptoms, not causes of the underlying problem, which is that on a worldwide basis, labor has lost its pricing power. The world is too efficient at production, and cannot create sufficient demand, except through debt. The debt problem is a symptom. Debt was the stop gap solution as society tried to find a reason to be for everyone. No solution was found, and now the debt itself has become a secondary problem.
Thirty years ago, those who thought about it felt blessed that they weren’t born a female in rural Bangladesh. As labor has lost its pricing power worldwide, the opportunity gap between that female born in rural Bangladesh and a white male born in the US has closed considerably. The Bangladeshi girl will still argue that the gap is wide, and it is, but objectively one can see that it is closing. Despite the hand wringing and frustration, though, few of the young US white males would trade places with that rural Bangladeshi girl. With time, the gap will close further and it will be six in one a half dozen in the other. It’s not going to get any better.
A hundred fifty years ago the world saw the introduction of the McCormick Combine. A machine could do in a single day the work it took fifty men two weeks to perform. Efficiency thus came first to farming and the production of food. The most developed parts of the world were lucky, because there was an Industrial Revolution to absorb displaced farm workers. Also, worldwide labor wasn’t yet arbitrage-able.
Manufacturing has seen a thousand different McCormick Combines come to the fore. Improvements in shipping, technology, and eventually the internet made labor a commodity, no longer limited by location, and major advances in efficiency and productivity chipped away at labor’s pricing power. Thus we had increased supply and decreased pricing power at the same time. That is not a recipe for upward mobility for those entering the workforce.
There is no Industrial Revolution to absorb the redundant and superfluous. The only thing we’ve got, and it is a distant second, is social networking. Facebook, Google and their bastard offspring, however, cannot absorb all the labor looking for gainful employment.
Some will argue that the solution is protectionism. They will argue that those accidentally whelped behind a particular border owe it to others whelped behind the same border to support them and give their lives meaning. So far, most people have chosen not to join what Kurt Vonnegut called a “granfalloon”, an artificial community based on some arbitrary or random commonality, such as place of birth. The main reason is because it costs too much. People, being “human”, might speak in homilies, but in their heart of hearts they want all labor outsourced except their own, especially when they get to the check-out counter in the store..
The last time labor had such little pricing power, the predominant economic construct was feudalism. That ended when labor gained pricing power. That pricing power came in the form of the Plague. That was quite a price to pay. Many who realize what is happening now are grabbing for all they can while they can, all the while keeping their mouths shut about the grand and inexorable trend, lest a general panic set in. If there is any grand conspiracy, this is it.
Existence moves in great cycles. Accidents of birth leave us all in a place and of a time not of our own choosing. We can do little but make the best of what we were dealt. Sad to say, Millennials showed up at a bad time, albeit still in a good place relatively, compared to that rural born Bangladeshi female. Those looking to blame someone might turn to their church, or absent faith, just scream at the great beyond. Neither will do a lick of good, but it might make some feel better.
There is no solution. This is just the beginning of the singularity. Sorry.
substitute automation and robotics for survival and you get 'scare`cities in population'... what follows is catastrophe? as in the "Malthusian Catastrophe"
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Malthusian_catastrophe
Wow, Chindit13, great post.
I posted mine (Above) before reading yours, But tried to point out the same issues. (symptom vs cause etc) but you said it much much better of course and fleshed it out perfectly.
Chindit13 that is one of the best posts I have read on here in years.
Wow.
Thanks, but I wish I was dead wrong. You and I hit it off in a bad way a long time ago, because I foolishly mentioned what I have spent my post-Wall Street years doing, and it seemed self-congratulatory. Still, my experience solidified the gnawing feeling I long had had, which was that there are all kinds of labor and intellect out there in the world just looking for a chance to take some guy's job who lives a comfortable lifestyle merely through an accident of birth. I've seen people given one step, who then run up the rest of the staircase, and you never see them again, because they become self-sustaining and self-sufficient. They were the recipients of two contrasting accidents of birth: they were born in a piss poor place, misgoverned by miscreants, but they were also born with brains and determination. In times past the latter two would have done them no good. Globalization and advances in technology have given the world access to what used to be hidden and wasted talent. That means competition is on the rise, which also means pricing power takes a hit except for the most essential and brightest of workers. It always comes back to the same thing: accidents of birth, but the talent pool is bigger now. As CrashisOptimistic wrote in an earlier comment, "IQ" is going to be more important than ever, and slackers no longer get any sort of a free ride just because they were lucky enough to be born behind an artificial wall called "citizenship". I'm not so sure that those who miss the cut will take it lying down, and I fear those who do make the cut may resort to uncomfortable measures to keep the downtrodden at bay. It might be Battle Royale, but adults have to play, too, and it may not end in cooperation as that movie did.
I have two main beefs with current leadership (and I use that term generously). The first is that they greatly over did the stopgap debt solution, thereby creating an unnecessary secondary problem, which is only being exacerbated by central banks. The second beef is that none of them is willing to commit political suicide and tell the truth. One of them needs, at the very least, to tell the young that unless they possess an extreme IQ or a highly specialized and unique talent, they are probably wasting time and money getting an expensive university degree. I would also do away with student debt guarantees, because it clearly has been the driving force behind both staggering and debilitating post-graduate debt, and the way-above-inflation rising cost of education. There's a whole lot of fancy natatoriums, highly paid tenured professors, and over-designed college facilities that are the direct result of free money for students (or rather free money for universities and debt for students).
Society might have worked hard to make all of us equal, but nobody's god did, and there's the rub.
There's always the last-ditch option of removing all options that do not result in hiring citizens of all skill levels in good faith - before considering non-citizens.
Playing hardball with the people that treat US citizens with contempt is about the only thing that will work.
Chindit, that was really fine. It is scary to think that now a plague can be manufactured, but of course they would never do that unless they had more servants than they could use...
My thoughts exactly. Wouldn't put anything past the realm of possibility now, given our recent past history.
At the very least we have, as a populace, lost trust in our government (in the US). Beyond mismanaging their own affairs (and by extension ours), they have proven beyond any doubt that they are capable of just about any wrongdoing, and they will fight to keep those activities covered up by any means necessary.
And as long as they are not held accountable, to the constitution as it was originally intended, it will continue.
Great post, Chindit and I admire your writing style. However, it does seem to have a sort of implcit Marxian cast, but in a good way. You really describe well the dominance of capital over labor, especially by means of advances in production. Marx was fascinated by the new technologies of his time, but I don't believe he appreciated how they could be used against labor as we see today, which appears to be an inevitable and natural development making an end run around the Marxian struggle between labor and capital.
However, though your synopsis is beyond criticism, it also sidesteps the whole moral issue, like a strictly military analysis would avoid the moral implications of waging war. I find your presentation kind of like analysing the social consequences of an asteroid impact.
On the other hand, somebody like William Black will analyze the current depression in terms of the fraud committed. Historians analysing the fall of Rome often seem to talk past each other in the same way. Nowadays, we are far more likely to resonate with a systematic or mechanical explanation for historical change such as you present, but, it has been said, "Man does not live by bread alone." I feel there is some potential shift in man's moral compass, perhaps best exemplified by the new pope. If so, your somber conclusion need not be inevitable.
Perhaps you are taking what I wrote to the next stage, which is a necessary step. Actually, though, I don't think I skirted the moral issue, as I tried to raise the point of what constitutes obligation. Many feel our first responsibility is to those of our own kind, either in terms of citizenship, or along the lines of ethnicity or faith. I think we're all, as a species, in this together, so one is as another. Obviously we'll still make very personal choices, mostly owing to instinct (toward family), but once that choice is made, where to next? Do we revert to tribal society? I'd like to hope we do not, but the advent of the internet has shown us all, now that we can communicate so easily across societies and across distances, that we're still pretty tribal and we look for reasons not to like each other.
As far as the overall crisis facing the world today, I try to view it by imagining a solution to one issue, and then look to see if the whole problem is fixed. Debt and money printing is what most here get incensed over, but I believe that even if we somehow solve that---and I have no idea how---we still have the intractable problem of providing a meaningful existence for all seven billion of us. The point you raised at the end is where I think it goes: we will have to redefine what 'meaningful existence' means. For a number of reasons it will not be consumerism, and I believe that will be a good and refreshing thing, though many will drag their feet into the new paradigm. Materialism is addictive, and if I look at what is happening in newly emerging economies, I think it might even be innate. On average people want to stand above the crowd and make their gene pool as attractive as possible.
Even if all of us collectively seek a new way to live, we probably still run up against resource constraints---oil being the obvious one, clean water another---albeit at a reduced pace.
All of us alive today are experiencing the peak, and everything is beginning to roll over in one of existence's grand cycles. It will be interesting, most likely unpleasant at times, and challenging every step of the way. At best I hope we can appreciate the opportunity each of us will have to test our mettle.
Millenial here. I have a job that I'm thankful for that gives me a decent salary, but I can only think about how dismal the future is going to be. I can't fathom having to pay for all the boomers retiring and collecting their SS and Medicare. "But we paid into the system! We deserve those benefits!" they tell me. Yeah right. Tell that to anyone who invested into something run by Bernie Madoff.
So many of my friends have moved back in with their parents. People don't have any idea just how bad it is. It's nice living with my GF at the moment in our two-room apartment and not being one of those people, but I know I could be so much better off. There is no fucking way we're buying a house until this mini housing bubble blows up. If the boomers think they can unload their overpriced houses, think again.
We're also not planning to have kids. Too fucking expensive. Take a look at Japan to see the future of the US when it comes to that.
Also, FUCK YOU Bernanke and ZIRP. How the fuck am I supposed to save for anything when I actually lose money from saving due to Ctrl+P?
Keep in mind young one - you will be there one day too and guess what those young ones will say about your Social Security and Medicare
"Daddy, what were Social Security and Medicare?" "Don't worry about that son, just some government programs that existed a long time ago, before we had to switch to eating cat food"
That and you can say the same expletives for businesses that generally show contempt for US citizens in their hiring practices.
Father to two Millennials here. Also a Boomer.
Don't worry kiddo about paying for all the boomer's retirement. You won't have to. Nor should you really worry that much about Obamacare and paying for that for you whole life. They won't be your concerns.
But you WILL see a sovereign debt default in your near future. And that aftermath is what is going to write the life line for you and the rest of us.
They will take all the pensions, and any and all other retirement accounts and convert them to Tbills or something in the name of saving the "Country" and "Common Good" but it won't help. You just can't out run a geometric progression once it starts going.
And being a Boomer who was told to go to school, raise a family, be a good worker for the company etc .... Pay into the system and things will go ok and you will be taken care of by the Company and/or Gov. (or at least be able to draw out your contributions so to speak).
But it really was an "Otter to Flounder" speech of basically "Flounder, You Phuked up, You trusted us". We paid in for 40 years(lied to) and got Phuked.
While you are being told straight up, "Hey We're gonna Phuk ya"
Now, both of us getting pissed at each other does NOT serve either of us.
It's what "They" would hope for. (Not unlike the traditional Dem vs Rep con to get us fighting each other)
So Babe, in the end (bad pun) we are both getting Phuked.
As for my Millennial daughters, One got married to college sweetheart and had a daughter, few weeks later my 28 yr sil dropped dead of heart attack. So for a few years now, I have my granddaughter and daughter living with us. She teaches at Montessori and receives teachers wages.
It is hard. We all pool together for the budget. Her friends with degrees many of whom live with parents can't find a job.
My other daughter just married, and her and her husband are starting a farm of grass fed chickens, pigs and cattle eventually. Local REAL food ya'll. That is where the rest of us are planning on working in the next couple years.
But the Problem.....
The misconception is that there are fewer jobs. It's worse than that. there are fewer Occupations period. The number of "new" occupations only employ few actual workers. How many are needed for Google or facebook to operate for example?
Anybody pump your gas anymore? How many "Clerical" workers are there in a typical office? Not as many as you would have seen in the 40's or even 60's. How about those "Manufacturing" jobs eh? I worked for a company that closed 8 American plants and built 2 in China and 1 in Hungry. Not only that, They dismantled the entire plant and moved it. So not only are those jobs not coming back, neither are the machines that were used.
We all basically have a "toaster", and don't really need that many of you workers making them anymore. Heck the plant that makes them makes a million a day and only has 4 employees to do it......
The sad sad bottom line truth is we really only need less than 100 million of yous guys to actually "Run" America. The rest of you, well, you're not needed anymore.
Sorry, Long response.
Great post samsara, I think you've managed to straddle the seemingly irreconciliable dividing line between the millennials and the boomers up here and write something everyone can connect with
Thank you. The differences will be exploited to be used against all of us.
You're "saving" in the wrong instruments (I presume FRN's) if you think ZIRP is a problem.
BS article - Obama, the MSM and MSNBC all say the economy is fine and jobs are readily available. I believe everything they say, why would they lie
Hang in there millennials.
The only graph that matters is the last one.
That is all that is needed to understand that the merger of Corporate & Goverment(ie Fascism) is complete.
When was it complete? When did the gloves come off?
The fake election in 2000
Thank the private sector that shows its hate for US citizens, never mind this generation of them. They alone can choose to hire citizens in good faith and not on bad faith.
Those requirements are generally inflated given that there is no meaningful way to push back. Monopsony-like forces aren't just for the unskilled, but for all US citizens these days - especially so for this generation.
Take away the means for businesses to avoid citizens and to hire in bad faith. They think they're almighty and beyond reproach for taking it out on workers, but they are wrong.
I am seeing the pressure begin to mount on the millennials. I live in an area where there are a bunch of them, they seem to be developing this generational culture of "whistling past the graveyard", this attempt at bombast which kind of folds of its own accord while you're speaking with them, like they don't know what to do, but they do know they don't want to panic.
Anecdotally, I see lots and lots of them smoking. It's a surprise because I thought most people were abandoning cigarettes, but lots of these young kids smoke all the time. Sort of like people who are scared of something in the future.
Only if businesses are allowed to act unchecked towards a workforce.
Well, you chuckleheads voted en mass for the stupid fuck occupying the WH now didn't you? It was all emotional wasn't it? Let's be fair and elect the biggest empty suit evahhhhhh. Welcome to the real world skulls full of mush - your first lesson was elections have consequences. Don't be as big a bunch of dumb asses next time around when Shillary comes a knockin' for your support.
http://vegasxau.blogspot.com
So the answer to "voting for the wrong person" is to take it out on the economy until your favored person is in? That only makes for unnecessary collateral damage.
It's 0bozo and his marxist fucking pogroms that has it's jackboot on the neck of small business and the average working Joe or Jane.
Remember, he wanted to "fundamentally change the US of A." Into what? A fucked up socialst state like we see in Europe: short work weeks, high unemployment, gov't (non) heath insurance (not the same as health care) and every body by nessesity (sp) on some kind of gov't dole-it's easier to control the dumb masses when they are dependent on gov't.
Wake the fuck up!
The whole Dem. / Republican blame game is a ruse.
Both are two sides to the same coin, run by the same puppet masters. The banking / energy elite have the real power in this world.
One need only look at the cooperating Central Banks of the world under the BIS to understand this:
http://www.bis.org/cbanks.htm
The whole Dem. / Republican debate is called a binary solution. It's the same thing that parents do to their kids- The Parents give them two choices only, both of which serve the parents needs.
Hence the organized backlash that comes with any new legitimate third party.
We in the US may ELECT the Gov. officials but they have really already been SELECTED for us.
There is a difference, a it's a big one.
Ah, you are talking like everything went bad Starting in 2008.
Look at the last graph again. It started going vertical in 2000. That was the previous guy. Who everybody voted for thinking he would change things.
He did.
Patriot Act, Drones, two wars, War on TERROR, WMDs, was started by him. "Wid us or Agin" us was started by him.
Agreed. All of this was raised to a whole new level in 2000. From then on it's all been Kabuki theater.
Not to say that things weren't screwed up before 2000, they were. Though the naked slight of hand has certainly been a lot more brazen as things progress.
Can't go on forever at this rate though as there are simply too many spinning plates wobbling on their sticks.
When they fall is anyones guess.
after all the insider dealing of 2008 which brought us ZH, we still have people here pointing fingers at the mass of common folk..look this new world order or elite benefit program as it can be called, has been planned and executed over a long time frame, the Duke Bro's made a bet that they could bribe hard working prosperous people with .gov cheese and at the same time import those that would take the bread from all our mouths...until you open your eyes wide shut, to the fact that this was planned and that those who did it benefit in power and wealth..get it?
Business has no duty to hire (more) people nor reduce profit growth.
Guys, let's not forget what's really important here! Rich people in bed with the government are getting what they want, just like they always do, and every negative side effect will be somebody else's fault, just like it always is.
Are there any econ charts that AREN'T showing steep declines?
Yes: REAL long-term unemployment, part-time jobs (under 30hrs/wk-thank 0bozocare) people on food stamps, people on "disability" after unemployment runs out, and DRUM ROLL PLEASE:
incomes in DC are going up! Woopee-some good news.
They came out to vote for HOPE and CHANGE in record numbers, and they got it.
They came out to vote for HOPE and CHANGE in record numbers, and they got it.
Lemme guess. Being a msm article the comment section is filled with twats blaming either Bush or Obama.
News comment sections must be the best safety indicator for TPTB.
9 out of 10 bozos still divided, conquered and crushing keyboards in the process? Yep, the ruse is still working.
"First, we thank the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, Lumina Foundation, and the Joyce Foundation for theirsupport of our research."
umm... yeah